It looks like we made the decision last night (22/1/20) to go to CanCon 2021. Sam, Jack and I as players in the 40k comp and Lucas as a spectator and hype guy, unless we can convince him to sign up - come on Lucas! Remember Conflict, or whatever it was called way back around 2005 ish? Your chaos warriors won best themed army!
This will be an interesting test for us. I imagine it will be amazingly exhausting, 8 games over 3 days, with a 12hr drive either side will be tough.
We were chatting for a while about doing something interesting with it, a blog or some such, so I’ve started writing this in any case. I’m especially looking forward to the drive home from Cancon, our armies will be bloodied in their cases, and we’ll be both exhausted and excited to dissect the comp and examine all my multitude of errors, I'm not sure a 12hr drive will be long enough to cover them all.
So what’s in front of us to make this happen?
2000pts, painted, in 365 days. Do-able, but we all have a great habit of not doing much for the first 75% of the time, then rushing from there, so who knows. We’re about to start a 40k escalation campaign so painting efforts will probably be here first. For me, this means green eldar, hopefully I can use Cancon to break up the greenery with some red or purple.
My next thought is how do you write an army list a year out? There could be any number of changes between now and then. I’m leaning towards Blood Angels or Chaos. Tau could be fun and interesting, but I haven’t played them in 8th, so it would have to be a quick learning curve, plus I'm not sure if 8 games straight with them would be fun. I want them to be mobile, but I’m not sure I’m familiar enough with them to be able to do that yet. Next is to get my head around not only full-scale competitive 40k, but ITC 40k at that. We generally play a lot of semi competitive games, but with armies that haven’t been bought for competitive reasons. So we don’t play against netlists, or uber armies.
Why Blood Angels? I have a good portion of them painted already, their playstyle suits me in that I like putting pressure on rather than castling up and having to react, and they were my first 40k army, plus they are in a reasonable spot at the moment following their Psychic Awakening. Blood Angels are a little simpler to use, they are their own little islands rather than a single cohesive force. Death Company and Lemartes, Sanguinary Guard and a Priest/Ancient etc. So I can wield these discrete elements without having to worry too much about how the army as a whole is working.
Alternatively, Chaos could be fun too. I really want to use my Keeper of Secrets, especially now they have new rules. That list would be a combination of Emperor’s Children and Daemons of Slaanesh. From the daemon's point of view, I’m interested in seeing what some quick elements (fiends and seekers) can do while the marines use their mid-range shooting. Would need a lot of playtesting to sort this out however. Also, while I’m confident in what the marine colour scheme would look like. I’ve got no idea what to do with the daemons.
I am however notorious for changing my mind - in a big way - from week to week. As an example, just in the last week I’ve been very keen on
A Warhammer Fantasy campaign of some description.
Adding some Night Lords to my Emperor’s Children - as a small warband that has gorged themselves on the joys of pain and fear and given themselves to slaanesh.
A Song of Ice and Fire miniatures campaign. Specifically a Riverlands campaign between Stark and Lannister
Working on the Harry Potter miniatures/RPG I’m designing for play with friends.
Blood Angels
Who knows what tomorrow will bring!
So now I embark on endless list writing with no outcome. I’ll circle around and around before I even get close to playing a game. I intend to keep all my practice lists so it will be interesting to see what the final one looks like - odds are it will be whatever is painted when lists are due. Also, this is ITC, we’ve never played that before, so it will take a while to get my head around it, and how lists differ for it.
Personally, I don’t think of myself as a tournament warhammer player, while I try to make lists to win, I don’t start them that way. I start them with an idea/vision/theme and then refine from there to not lose too badly. I will also, when playing, make some less optimal choices if they are perhaps more heroic (or not if playing skaven) or cinematic. So this large scale tournament thing will be an interesting test for my psyche.
My 40k at the moment is more about learning and optimising what I can do before assessing what my opponent has up their sleeves. There’s still so many armies and combos out there I don’t know, so I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of surprises.
Another interesting dilemma will be that we rarely play above 1500pts, and rarely 1v1’s so I’m curious to see how our lists change to suit the higher points. Do we spread out and take more different units, or do we double down on what we’ve got and take more of the same?
Meanwhile, on the painting side of things I have already completed:
Blood Angels
Terminator captain
Sanguinary priest
Predator
5 Thunder hammer terminators
10 Death company
Lemartes
Chaos
Nothing…
So for the Blood Angels list I want to incorporate the following:
Mephiston (just recieved last night as a birthday present - very keen to put him together. Thanks guys!)
Lemartes - he’s fun!
Smash captain - I’ve never properly used one of these before.
Death Company - already painted, and I like rolling lots of dice
Death Company dread - same as above
Sanguinary guard - a fun elite feeling unit, although I’ve modelled them with axes/swords so I might have to cut them up a bit.
2x Baal predators - I like the concept of holding up a space on the board and putting pressure on infantry with their flamers, regardless of damage received. I’m good at playing reckless, if I have to preserve anything I go too far the other way.
After that i’ve got the following available
15 scouts
Predator with autocannon and twin las (already painted, and my favourite painted model of the army right now)
Furioso/librarian dread
Terminators - the hammer ones are already painted, but I like the look of claws better.
Assault marines - not sure how to use these just yet
Vanguard vets - as above, I built them in 6th so they might need some re-weaponing.
I was trawling instagram last night and found some great Custodes models. Sorry, can’t find the page again to tag. This brought me back to thinking about my Custodes. So they are option 2 I think instead of Chaos. Something different and with a reasonable chance of killing some marines. I’d love to take just the Golden Guys, but maybe should ally in some guard/sisters/inquisitor with them. Sisters would be interesting and new, but Inquisitors would be a fun conversion project. I’ve already got Inquisitor Karamazov and enough Cawdor bodies for his acolytes. Not sure how they would fit in together from a fluff point of view - I’m sure I could come up with something. The other alternative is converting up my Ordo Sepulturum force. This Inquisitor started its career as an ordo xenos inquisitor before becoming interested in xenos diseases and using them against their originator. Since then they’ve taken an interest in daemonic diseases. Alongside the inquisitor and potentially 3 acolytes, is a small force of Tempestus Scions.
From an army point of view the Custodes should be relatively easy to paint, though I haven’t settled on a colour scheme yet. But I would like to spend some time individualising each of them. I really like the army of ‘elite individuals’ feel the Custodes have, and have a pair of dreadnaughts (Galatus and Achillus) to complement that. I also would like to build this army in 3’s. Each troop choice is 3 models, 3 characters, 3 dreads. I think three of them together feels like the pack of lions compared to the 5 of the marines’ units.
It will mean I need to find myself a copy of the forgeworld book(s) at some point too.
Don't worry, Covid-19 and 9th edition have come in to really shake it all up. Plus, my partner and I are expecting our first child in December, so big road-tripping plans for January are not high on the priority list anymore.
We've now started basic planning for Cancon 2022! I've been so out of the loop of 40k lately that I don't even know where to start. Wow, Chaos! what was I thinking... I haven't even looked at chaos since then. Custodes are still on the cards, though I'd have to source the Forge World materials for it. But I'm also tossing up perhaps playing Star Wars Legion instead. We'll see how we go, it'll probably come down to how painted everything is. 9 months will really go quick...
We're going to pool all our ideas, expectations and general chit-chat here
So Here's my first iteration of the List. My ideal Blood Angels list is a lot of fast stuff, i.e. jump packs and vehicles. I really like assault marines, but I just can't find a reason to include them when Death Company, Vanguard Vets and Sanguinary guard exist.
I really like my Death Company and Lemartes gang, so they are in. Nothing much going on here, probably need a fancy weapon with some of the Death Company, but I painted them a while ago, and probably can't recreate it, so they are staying as they are.
I used to run my Blood Angels with scouts filling up the troops slots, but with them moving I need to move into Tac Marines. Giving them rhinos fills the fast side I like to see, and lets them keep up. Plus I can park the rhino on an objective and if the tac marines need to get out, they can still hit reasonably hard to defend their objective.
Baal predators are one of the key units that get me excited about Blood Angels. I know they aren't viewed favourably, but I still want to include them. I wanted two Baal and regular predator, but I think I have to drop the assault cannon one for the heavy bolter devastators. The devastators are still going to be an interesting point for me, I'm not sure how to use them yet, and what their best targets are. I see them as something to drop if need be after some practice games.
Vanguard Veterans are another in that very contested spot of fast combat specialists. I originally built mine as chainsword wielders, but they just step on too many toes there, so I'll need to repurpose them. I love the look of swords and shields, but really claws just do the sword job better - especially in assault doctrine. At least I'll keep the sword on the champ. Time to chop 'em up!
That leaves the golden part of the army. The Sanguinor just looks fun, the Angel himself will come in and save my arse where I need him. His buff will help out whoever he saves as well. Also, he's going to be fun to convert. The sanguinary ancient is a nice little buff character, I think I'm going to go with the re-roll charges aura as I'm rubbish at rolling charges, but we'll see how it goes in testing. Finally, only a small unit of Sanguinary guard, but hopefully enough to cause some distruption.
This leaves just my warlord, the Librarian Dreadnaught, because who doesn't love a robot wizard vampire.
Librarian Dreadnaught
Lemartes
The Sanguinor
Tactical Marines (x5) - Sergeant with Power Claw
Tactical Marines (x5) - Sergeant with Power Claw
Tactical Marines (x5) - Sergeant with Power Claw
Death Company Marines (x9) - Jump Pack and 9x Bolt Pistol and Chainsword
Sanguinary Ancient - Inferno Pistol, Encarmine Sword, Relic: Icon of the Angel
Sanguinary Guard (x5) - Angelus Boltgun and Encarmine Sword
Vanguard Veterans (x5) - 4x Lightning Claw and Storm Shield, Sergeant with Relic Blade and Storm Shield
Baal Predator - Flamestorm Cannon and Heavy Flamer sponsons
Predator Annihilator - Lascannon Sponsons
Devastator Squad (x5) - Heavy Bolters
Rhino - Storm Bolter
Rhino - Storm Bolter